400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#11

Post by grawprog » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #3

Confirmation bias is a creepy thing sometimes. I was literally asking my Google Home last night what the longest living vertebrate was and it told me the Greenland shark. Had a whole conversation about it over dinner, arguing about how accurate we think these age-establishing methods are. Though the more interesting part of our conversation (I would say) was wondering how ages work out in practice. For example why do…

Heartrate has been found to play a big part.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9316546/

Animals with slower heart rates tend to be longer lived. An interesting sidenote are bats, which have heart rates about the same as similarly sized small mammals like mice, but due to their nightly torpor state where their heart rate is significantly lowered, they tend to live 20-25 years opposed to the 3-4 mice usually live.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#12

Post by arbitrage » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

kovek wrote: post #8

ithkuil wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> confirmation bias .. Wouldn't that be more an example of the Baader Meinhof effect?

How do people develop their repertoire/knowledge of these “effects” and laws?

baader-meinhoff has been a neologism for a long time now, enough so that it isn't really a neoligism anymore, and we just collectively moved onto accepting it as the name of this phenomenon.

there's a lot of these sorts of in-sphere jargon; you'll start picking them up if you peruse the more esoteric threads on tech news blog aggregator sites like this.

like, if one of the original repliers in a thread is "why is this on HN", there's an increased chance imho that you'll run into this sort of techno-cultural salon effect.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#13

Post by williamdclt » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #7

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #2

> The team looked at 28 sharks, most of which had died after being caught in fishing nets as by-catch. Nice job- the shark had done just fine for ~400 years.

Of the shark was by-catch it means that it had been caught by commercial fishing and had already died when the scientists examined it.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the parent was taking a jab at destructful industrial fishing and its methods, not scientists

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#14

Post by dalbasal » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

So...

One individual out of 28 is known to be 400 years old. There is a subadult population bulge. Any way of estimating natural life spans from this? Could be some very, very old sharks out there. I wonder how big the 400yr old one is, relative to max known size.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#15

Post by fguerraz » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

What startles me is how much we've changed their environment in that single individual's lifetime. That shark was the equivalent of a human teenager when the industrial revolution started.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#16

Post by fallat » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #11

fastball wrote: post #3

Confirmation bias is a creepy thing sometimes. I was literally asking my Google Home last night what the longest living vertebrate was and it told me the Greenland shark. Had a whole conversation about it over dinner, arguing about how accurate we think these age-establishing methods are. Though the more interesting part of our conversation (I would say) was wondering how ages work out in practice. For example why do…

Heartrate has been found to play a big part. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9316546/ Animals with slower heart rates tend to be longer lived. An interesting sidenote are bats, which have heart rates about the same as similarly sized small mammals like mice, but due to their nightly torpor state where their heart rate is significantly lowered, they tend to live 20-25 years opposed to the 3-4 mice usually live.

Hmm, less stress, lower heart rate, longer life.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#17

Post by rubicon33 » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #11

fastball wrote: post #3

Confirmation bias is a creepy thing sometimes. I was literally asking my Google Home last night what the longest living vertebrate was and it told me the Greenland shark. Had a whole conversation about it over dinner, arguing about how accurate we think these age-establishing methods are. Though the more interesting part of our conversation (I would say) was wondering how ages work out in practice. For example why do…

Heartrate has been found to play a big part. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9316546/ Animals with slower heart rates tend to be longer lived. An interesting sidenote are bats, which have heart rates about the same as similarly sized small mammals like mice, but due to their nightly torpor state where their heart rate is significantly lowered, they tend to live 20-25 years opposed to the 3-4 mice usually live.

Assuming this is true, I recommend everyone start running!

If I am regularly running, my resting heart rate at night drops into the upper 30s. During the day sitting down, 45-50.

If I haven't been running (for a week or longer) it picks back up in to the mid 40s at night, and around 60 for normal sitting.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#18

Post by mannerheim » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

The Icelandic dish of hákarl (fermented shark) is often made using Greenland shark.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#19

Post by jamestimmins » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

For context, the Mayflower reached the US with the earliest Pilgrims 401 years ago.

Re: 400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’ (2016)

#20

Post by cseleborg » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

The Ming clam the article refers to as comparison was not 508 years but 405 to 410 according to the linked reference. So I'd say that shark is definitely a strong contender for the overall title.